Simone Forti, the dancer and choreographer, developed some dance pieces and exercises that explore how a body produces and integrates knowledge physically. They are based on forms of circling that enable an opening of the self: like the whirling dervishes, Forti loses authorship of her movements as she circles, she becomes intoxicated, or rather she intoxicates herself first (she smokes pot and then moves), and observes, without controlling them, the forces working on her, the momentum that pulls the mass of her body inwards, and her attention along with it.[1] She builds a whole study of movement on this practice and on a curiosity that is trying to satisfy itself, and that knows when a movement is fresh, and when it is spent: When a movement has been absorbed into the body, it can be executed perfectly. The body expands its possibilities, and in expanding, these possibilities cease to feel different or new. Change happens and is felt until it transmutes into the already known.
[1] Simone Forti, Handbook in Motion (Northampton, MA: Simone Forti : Distributed by Contact Editions, 1998), 129.
[1] Simone Forti, Handbook in Motion (Northampton, MA: Simone Forti : Distributed by Contact Editions, 1998), 129.